One Size Does Not Fit All, A Mother’s Day Message

Today my Facebook feed is full of beautiful tributes and happy wishes for moms. I like this holiday, the flowers and cards and attention. 😉 I enjoy thinking about the loving things, like rocking and reading stories and baking cookies. But let’s be honest: so much of what we do has a mind numbing repetition and it is good to know that it really does add up, in the end, to a nurtured child.

I mean, who knew that you would have to repeat so often those choice bits of motherly advice? I hear myself saying the exact same things to my children that my mom said to me.

Life isn’t fair and you might as well accept it.
Don’t throw balls in the house!
Use a tissue!
Shut the door!
You don’t ever say you hate somebody.

And all those women who got cards and flowers today… what did they have in common that caused them to be so loved that even a tough grown son would write on their Facebook wall something like this, “Mom, I know I was a pain growing up and I want to thank you today for being such a great mother anyway.”

I am hazarding a guess that she didn’t spout out wise platitudes every day, but maybe more like, “Don’t pick your nose! Who had it first? When you hurt somebody accidentally, you still say sorry,” etc. etc. And then she swatted his backside and sent him out to play, fully aware that he hadn’t really understood what she said and she would be repeating herself the next day. Maybe she sighed and prayed and made another batch of scrambled eggs and washed another load of jeans and wiped the grime off the bathroom sink.

I suppose this is why I don’t always feel very pious about my “lofty calling”. Daily life seems so ordinary and I know myself to be quite flawed and prone to messing up, even with these amazing little miracles we call our children. Don’t get me wrong, I do earnestly want to get this right, this shot I have been given at mothering. It just seems so incredible that commonplace mortals have been assigned to a task that, were we to read the “high-calling literature” just the way it is written, we would have to assume that children are too fragile to be entrusted to anyone but angels. And angels we are not!

In the early days of parenting, I used to cast about for methods, child-training gurus, books on sleep training, guides to teach children manners, you-name-it. I took my child’s failings personally, agonizing privately to my husband, “If I were a good mother, we would not be dealing with this. I must have missed it somewhere.” (My husband always assured me that this was actually a lie, and I should pitch it out.) This was a very heavy weight of responsibility and more than a little frustrating when the tried and true methods didn’t always work.

One day it dawned on me that children just are not one size fits all. Nobody else was ever given our particular children to raise. I could ask for advice and pick the brains of the wise and learn from them but in the end, they were our children. I couldn’t blame ——- ——- for our issues. Nobody is wise enough to cover all the angles of everybody else’s children. (Do This=This Good Result.) But wait, there is someone Who is really THAT WISE.

James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

I decided to give up the quest for a fool-proof method and quit acting like this was all up to me to figure out. This is very homespun and practical, but it gives me confidence to realize that I certainly meet the requirement of lacking wisdom, God is still a liberal giver, and all I have to do is ask in faith. I started asking God the silliest questions, like stuff about weaning away from binkies or getting my son to eat his peas, and more burdensome stuff, like the problem with lying. Lots of times I woke in the morning with a fresh idea that I knew didn’t just come out of my own head. Sometimes God may use that book I bought or the other mom’s blog post, or maybe He will teach me something from my husband. “She is big enough to throw her binky into the trashcan by herself and understand that it is gone.” (And guess what, she was, and that was the end of it, no trauma for life or anything like that.)

I am intrigued… what do all the women who are blessed by their children (biological or otherwise) today have in common? I suppose it could be called something noble like “sacrifice” or something more simple like “do-the-next-thing.” Maybe, despite ourselves, we are all becoming a little less selfish and a little more sage about life in the process. And just maybe the everyday routine matters more than we think it does, with the end result, by the grace of God, a nurtured child.

Why it is Okay to Think Your Kids Are Pretty Special

That last post about individuality in a pile of kittens and how the eyes of love see them… well, here is where I am going with that.

I believe strongly that our children need to know that we see them, who they are, their gifts and natural abilities, as distinguished from all the other grey kittens in the pile. They need to know that Mom and Dad are on their side, cheering them on to success, despite the fits and starts that accompany budding attempts at growing up.

One of my sons is having a bit of a wobbly time right now, struggling to relate to friends, not always sure he likes himself or anybody else, even. Oh dear, I think, here we go into adolescence, and I have no idea what I am doing parenting this age. I have seen his step lighten after I just casually put my arm around him and tell him (one cannot be too deliberate with affection at this stage, it seems) how proud I am that he is my son. I tell him that he is learning to walk upright, and that is sometimes really, really hard, but I know that someday it will help him to be a real man because he fought battles when he was young. I explain that it is all right to mess up, as long as one admits the mistake and makes amends where it is needed. I want my son to know that he is special, he has gifts, he makes me happy, so I tell him those things, even when, or maybe especially when he sorely tries my patience. I do hope and pray that this will help him to have confidence and steadiness when the waters get even rougher.

In parenting, there are so many moments of correction, reproof, instruction… so many times we need to discipline and pull back an erring child. We certainly don’t want them to run wild without the stability of boundaries. But it is much too easy to forget that they do not automatically know how much we love them, how delightful they are to us.

The eyes of love notice the hidden talent that will be a tremendous asset as the person emerges. They see under the surface of sameness and assure the little ones that they are unique, telling them small specifics that are evident in the child’s life, like little buds waiting for the right season. This is what breaks my heart about orphanages. No matter how clean and well fed a child may be, every child needs someone who really sees them as invaluable. My deepest respect goes to those who make it their life goal to provide that for parentless children.

The old thinking was that too much praise would make a proud child. Humility is a beautiful virtue, but there were entire generations of children who grew up straining for approval and yearning to hear just once that their parents love them. That is just tragic, and not a mistake that we need to repeat. Surely we can show our children how much we like them without turning them into stuck-up snobs.

Parents are notorious braggers. We don’t mean to be, but it happens because we are besotted with these children that we love endlessly. I honestly think this is okay. I have heard some obnoxious bragging, but generally I love to hear people talk about their children. It means that they are noticing them, really looking at them, delighting in them.

This is why I also love pet names for children. It is like a personal tie, a more intimate connection than you have with just anyone. I love secrets with children, whispering in their ears. When my babies were nursing infants, I made up songs for them with their names and sang them in the dead of the night, just me and the babe. I make no apologies for being completely dotty over my children, and neither should you.

After all, God delights over His children too! Far from making me feel proud, that fact raises in me a reciprocation of delight in Him and cements in me a confidence in His love that takes me through the storm.

But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his steadfast love. Ps. 147:11

A Question

I have a son (not mentioning names here or anything) who baffles me and delights me and makes me howl with laughter and irritates me terribly by turns.

How is it that the person who last brushed his teeth “the day after tomorrow” (he was serious) can tell me long involved stories about the digestive processes of owls?

How can a child who forgot every day where his seat was at the table even though it never changed, be able to show me the perfect little chef delineated by Minnesota, Wisconsin, and so on, ending with the Kentucky frying pan where he is making chicken?

And today when I told him to put the gloves away “where they belong”, he said, “I am going to need latitude and longitude for that.” Yet he could quote verbatim a long Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

Can somebody tell me what is up with that?

Can somebody tell me whether I should continually pull him ruthlessly back to reality and the job at hand, or should I laugh and let it go?

Mama with a Cause

(photo source)

That question I asked at the end of yesterday’s post? I know the answer, and so do you. Of course our assignments as mothers are important. They just don’t always feel that way. There are a lot of very worthy causes for women to pour their energies and passions into, making a difference and all that. It just so happens that my calling has placed me into a spot where I believe it is in everyone’s best interest if I stay home and do it. There are days when I have had an overload of domesticity and I could rally about as much enthusiasm to Save the Turtles as I “feel” about Making a Home.

I remember one day I had a bit of an epiphany. There had been a night of interrupted sleep, the third baby uncomfortable in my womb, and my little boys were doing laps around me, full of impulsive ideas to have fun. Clear as a bell, the thought came: If I am going to be a mother, I might as well give it everything I have. The truth of the matter was that I wasn’t giving it everything. I was spending too much time trying to figure out ways to make this job less demanding on me. This attitude was sucking all the joy out of my days.

That was when I decided to quit keeping a mental tally of the hours of sleep I got, the numbers of times I had to lay down my book to get a drink, the tons of laundry I pulled up and down stairs and in and out of machines. I stopped resenting wiping noses and concentrated on how cute the noses were. I love children’s literature, and now I got to read it out loud, all the time! Things became funny, my own private comic strip. They actually became fun (most of the time). Joy came back.

I am not going to pretend that the adjustment to whole-hearted momming was easy for me. I have an insidious desire to spare myself from too much hard stuff that didn’t die its final death in one instant. There have been many times when I have thought longingly of the English and their nannies. On the days when I am overwhelmed with the vastness of the job of raising my children, I need to pull my head out of the sand and remember my credo.

I have been given this job as a sacred charge, and I am going to give it everything I have, by the grace of God. I am a Mama With a Cause!

Reliving my Babies

I have never put together any sort of photo album for the two smallest girls. Olivia’s is done up to 18 months, with about three years to go. Each of my children get one personal hand-scrapbooked album, which usually fills up at about 4 years old. When Rita was 3 months, we had a computer crash that wiped out years of photos, then we had camera fiascos and I lost the memory card in the bowels of the CD reader one dark night. You could say it hasn’t been the most fortunate set of circumstances. For a long time I held out hope that my brother could retrieve our files off the crashed computer, but alas, it was not to be. Eventually friends and Facebook albums provided me with some of her as a newborn, so I have cobbled together a file of about 300 photos that I am getting developed to put into their books. That is about 295 more pictures than I have from the first four years of my life, so I think they will be fine. 🙂

Anyway, I have been looking at our photo archives, and every now and then I would say, “Gabe, come look at this! Remember this expression? Can you believe how little they were when Addy was born?” And so on and so forth with the stuff parents say and then resolve to enjoy the moment more. I will spare you, but just share a few snapshots that make me smile.

Four years ago, the happiest, jolliest baby ever.

She’s a Tomato Peight. (Someday I will post my husband’s essay on the subject.)

The child has a surprising aptitude with scissors.

And here we are four years later. Next thing I know her dad will be walking her down the aisle.

Occupational Hazards of Parenting

About the time my first born turned two, old enough to trundle things around, we became aware of a facet of parenting that we hadn’t considered before. It became clear to us that we would have to become comfortable with mystery. Up till then, the screws had their own designated spot in the organized utility drawer, the flashlights stayed in the closet, the pens in the tin can designated for pens, not pencils or markers or stray tinker toys. Oh lovely adage: a place for everything and everything in its place. Now five children later, the mysteries have deepened and surround all of life.

It is a little exasperating that, despite having very keen hearing and the use of a proverbial set of eyes in the back of my head, I simply do not always catch on. It is humbling to acknowledge that they probably are smarter and faster than I am.

When I was a child, our family would kneel at the couch to pray every evening at bedtime. The little ones would kneel beside our parents and my brother Nate and I got the outside edges. We hit upon a conspiracy to back slowly into the middle of the living room while my dad was praying, then creep forward again, suppressing giggles. I don’t know how many times we did this before we got found out but I do remember how daring it felt to do something so utterly unapproved of and be undiscovered. Boy, did we ever think we pulled it over our parents.

Now our children do it to us, and sometimes it is funny and sometimes it is really irritating. Just the time we think we have things figured out, they change it up on us. I give you Conundrums in the Kitchen:

Just yesterday you hated tomatoes, and today you are picking them off the salad before I get any. What is up with that?

Why is there a can of worms in the fridge?

Who drank my coffee?

How come it isn’t possible to eat a cookie without 299 crumbs on the floor?

Who let the cat(s) into the house?

How did that box of Cheezits get empty so fast?

Then there are the Black Hole Mysteries:

Does anybody know what happened to Rita’s fuzzy brown boots?

If you had five pairs of undies last week, they must still be somewhere. ???

Where in the world did that Popular Mechanics library book go?

What can possibly have happened with my sister’s prized Cricut cartridge?

Where is all the toilet paper going?

Has anyone seen my driving gloves?

I also have a category of Generally Inscrutable Events:

Who splattered the bathroom mirror with toothpaste?

How did the new colored pencils get so short?

Why are there rocks in your bed?

How can you possibly be hungry when we just ate supper an hour ago?

How did we bring home “Baby Easter Bunny” from the library without my knowledge?

Where did you learn that word?

How do you know how to type and print a document?

What happened to the chocolate chips that were on the pantry shelf?

When did you get so tall?

And last, but not least, there are the Lovely Surprises:

What did I do to deserve a child who loves to sort all those screws and thumbtacks and assorted beads and marbles in the utility drawer?

Who passed on the cleaning gene to the little girl who runs for the vacuum cleaner when the house is a wreck?

How is it that the child who ate all the chocolate is so adorable in his contrition?

Who can resist the mischief-maker who cuts hair, snips sheets, shears stuffed animals, and doles out hugs that nearly crack the ribs?

How can the baby of the crew be so grown up and articulate, yet such a total mush pot who wants to be rocked with her blanket?

How could this life get any more interesting?

EDIT… One final whodunit:

Who published this post before I was done?

Impressions

I have been thinking that maintaining a blog is a bit like building a snowman. You sort of have to keep the ball rolling so that you know what to build onto next. If you stop for a long time, you find that the energy has melted away and you aren’t sure where to start.

I have periodic freak outs about the lack of anonymity that comes with internet. Like, suppose someone reads that we are in Michigan and decides it would be a good time to clean out our house with a U Haul? So then I should probably not have posted that bit until we are home. And real bloggers have posts done ahead of time, scheduled to publish on set days.

Also, I cannot type on the iPad very well, which was the only piece of technology we hauled along. I have issues with anything but an Apple keyboard, finding myself so distracted with frustration and backspacing that I lose my train of thought.

So… enough with the disclaimers. Here we are, home again. So very much has happened in two weeks, I could bore you to tears. I decided to keep it to a terse list of impressions.

Rest…such a lovely rest in the middle of a National Forest in Michigan.
Enchanting foliage in hardwood forests
The limits of GPS on National Forest trails 🙂
New foods (Pasties, (pass-tees) anyone?) and painted moose
Political blather about the government shutdown on every. single. station.
A missed stop sign, a speeding feed truck, a smashed front bumper… within four miles of my grandparent’s WI home!
Large mercies!
An evening of family camaraderie with the uncles and their families
Half way there, kids!
Hours of mind-numbing corn fields
Welcoming arms of the SD home which was our ultimate destination
Wood stove, tea, comfortable catch-up chats with siblings
Laughter as yet another child, supposed to be abed, needs something
Melding of nine kids in one house, smoother than expected
My sister-in-law’s cappuccino muffins with coffee
Blazing sunsets… so much horizon you would have to believe the earth is round
New appreciation for the blessing, “May the wind be always at your back.”
Sunday lunch with friends, reminiscing over childhood memories
All too soon packing up again… fare-thee-wells
Fifteen minutes into a 20 hour journey Addy’s piping voice: “Are we about there yet?” (No joke.)
Due east into the Minnesota sunrise… and on… and on…
Dairy Queen to cheer the little people
Pit stop in Indiana at a beloved cousin’s house
Child blubbing sadly for an hour when we hit the road again the next morning… she doesn’t know why
Little girl fantasizing about a long bath
Loud, cheerful singing of “We’re home, we’re home, we’re home…” in the last three miles

There is also a list of numbers in my head.

Six audiobooks: Exodus, Number the Stars, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Amos Fortune, Calico Captive, The Man Who Was Thursday, and Dave Ramsey something or other
One hundred and seven (give or take a few tens) water towers
Hundreds and thousands of windmills, spinning their futuristic way to power
Zero. The number of times my two year old had a potty accident.
Two and a half books, read during stretches of mind-numbing corn fields and political blather
About two thousand, nine hundred and sixty-seven semi trucks between IN and PA, according to Greg
Three thousand, two hundred and forty miles

So here we are, home again. Grateful.

Essentials for Parents

When I was expecting our first baby, I got a free subscription to a couple of those baby/parent magazines. Nearly every issue had lists of essentials: Things to Buy Before Baby Comes. They included the obvious, like diapers and wipes, but there were also lists of gear, the best gear for the job. There were clothing lists: 10 onesies, 7 pairs of socks, 14 bibs, 5 blankets, etc.

By the time my fifth child was imminent, I just chucked the magazines into the trash can as soon as they came in the mail. It wasn’t all pish-posh, but most of the advice and current parenting trends just didn’t seem relevant at all to the lady who already had 14 bibs and rarely used them. I didn’t need pacifier sanitizing wash or enormous exercise saucers that would fill all the space in my living room where we usually walk. Please, don’t even get me started on the advice for parents when the child is angry/pitching a fit/making needs known. And those gorgeous pictures of model babies wearing designer clothes…hello! Who spends 70 dollars on a jumper for a 10 month old?

If I were to make a list for the baby mag, it would look more like this:

Sense of Humor. You will need it every single day. Just last week, my 2 year old dropped a small deposit out of her undies onto the floor of the library. She is supposed to be potty trained, but still in that stage where squatting down to look at shelves of books tends to complicate things. You simply cannot make up the stuff that happens with small children around. You might as well laugh. I often feel like I live in The Family Circus. Hey, it is funny!

Grace for the times that aren’t funny. When I feel like shaking and scolding, it is good to remember how graciously I have been dealt with in my failures and idiosyncrasies. Instead of saying, “You LOST YOUR SHOES AGAIN?” I might remember how often the whole crew looks for my lost cell phone. “Okay, sonny, they can’t walk off by themselves. Where did you last wear them?” Did you know grace doesn’t roll eyes at her children, either?
Persistence. Parenting is another word for repeating. You know the verses in Isaiah 28:10 where he is talking about teaching knowledge, “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little.” It really is that way. Sometimes it feels like the things I am trying to teach my children are dotted lines, and the children are not connecting the dots. They just never are going to get it. But they do! They grow, they learn, and eventually they get it! It just blesses my soul when my child takes the smaller piece of cake and lets a sibling have the one with more icing surface area.
A pen and paper. This comes in really handy when you are having one of those dotted line struggles where you feel like you will never connect. Keep a private journal of the joys as well as of the issues you are facing. One day you will be heartened when you look back at what you wrote and realize that you have indeed passed that milepost. My mom kept a baby book for each of us, even though she also had a cow to milk and hens to feed and innumerable duties on the farm, not to mention raising 4 kids born in 5 years. We always cherished those books, laughing about our first words, comparing our records to see who walked first, and who hated eating peas, etc. Pen and paper doesn’t have to be fancy, but it has an amazing way of making a child feel celebrated. “Mom noticed me!” A friend of mine makes quick notes on her calendar when something noteworthy happens with the children. You might think you will never forget that hilarious thing the 3 year old said, but it could be gone by supper time if you don’t jot it down.
Flexibility, sometimes a complete U-turn. Also known as humility, this is an essential that is sometimes so hard to come by. You can get so invested in winning every battle, being the authority, having the answers, that you forget all about the little person you are dealing with. We have always had a strict bedtime policy. Once you are in bed, you don’t get out unless you are about to wet the bed, or maybe if the house is on fire. 🙂 It took a bit of training for the toddlers, but they caught on. This last toddler, however, still has not gotten the memo, even though we have been working on this since spring. She comes crying, wanting a drink, a vitamin, a different blanket, a story. It is too dark, too light, she fell out of her toddler bed. For the first few months, we steadfastly clung to our usual training routine, and much as I dislike saying this, it didn’t work. It didn’t work ten times a night. I began praying for enlightenment. Finally we decided that she simply wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep at the usual bedtime, so we let her stay up an extra hour or two. She sits on the couch and looks at books, then we have a little cuddle and off she goes! The little offspring of the bedtime absolutists has taught them a bit about flexibility. I would like to assure you earnest young parents out there that needing to change your mind on an issue is not a sign of weakness. We all need to grow, not just the children.
Wisdom. Pray for it. God has promised to give it…liberally! Don’t knuckle under when the problems seem too daunting. I think back to a contrary streak one of my sons went through. To be honest, there were days when I just wanted to give him away, let someone else raise him for a while. I felt so totally unprepared for this task. One day I was dumping out my questions to God, and He clearly showed me that I needed to first get rid of my own bad attitude. “This is your job. You were given this child because you are supposed to be his parent. Embrace it, even when it is hard. I will give you the wisdom you need.” Things went quite a bit better when I got my own sinful attitude cleansed. Wisdom, I might add, is not a fail proof system that you use to ensure good outcomes. Wisdom is a relationship with the One who knows all the facts and guides the person who seeks to walk His ways.

While not essential in the strictest sense, this list is Frivolous Things Every Parent May Need.

Chocolate. Really good chocolate, hidden for quiet moments alone in the bedroom. Just don’t hide it so hard that you can’t remember where you put it when you really need it!
Lysol wipes. Children is another word for messes. It is supposed to be that way. The wipes just make a lot of cleanup so much easier. And they smell nice.
Audiobooks. Books are gateways out of our little worlds and worries. They help us to soar serenely above the mundane. 🙂 Any parent knows that after you read The Curious Little Kitten, The Biggest Bear, and Fox in Socks for the 40th time, you don’t have an abundance of time to read your own level. (Unless, of course, you barricade yourself in the bathroom and ignore all sounds of disaster outside the door.) This is where audiobooks are so helpful. You can listen to them while you cook, while you drive to the dentist, while you fold laundry. Bonus points go to the audios that capture your children’s attention, too. We are currently on the umpteenth listening of God’s Smuggler.
Band aids. Lots of them. They make everything better.
Friends. It is nice if some of your friends also have drool on their shoulders and cheerios on the floor of their mini vans. I have been so blessed with beautiful friends who have my back. We do not walk alone, thank God!

I am sure I missed some essentials, especially frivolous essentials. I would love to hear what yours are.

Edit: how in the world did friends get put on the frivolous list? Just so you know, it is in the wrong place up there.

Interior Monologue at Two AM

In the past week I lost at least three blog posts to the shadows of the night, because I ~~was too lazy to get up~~ needed to sleep. I don’t know why it is that sometimes the writing flows and other times it gets stopped up. Neither do I understand why I think up long, interesting bits about life at 2 AM and then cannot remember more than shreds of it at 7 AM. I should probably do what some bloggers do, give myself a deadline. You can expect a fresh post every Tuesday and Friday morning at seven, sharp. (That was a joke, because where would be the fun in that?)

Last night we went to bed early, and here I am, all chipper and feeling like I already slept enough.

The new family vehicle started hiccuping on us last weekend. Some stabilitrak system or other was kicking on and off without provocation. OH, NO. Service stabilitrak soon. It is a little hard to ignore when the lights flash and blink on the dash. We needed an inspection anyway, but the title transfer wasn’t done yet. So we decided to get a tune up, see what we are up against. Halfway to the garage, a distance of seven miles, I noticed that the warning light was off, the vehicle no longer hiccuping at all. Thank the Lord for large mercies!

Driving a Suburban is a little like navigating a smallish whale, although I have to say, this one is smoother than the old van was, by a long shot. And do you have any idea how much cargo room these guys have? It is amazing.

Gabe convinced me to go to our local outfitter’s store last Saturday when they were having a summer blowout sale. He brought me a helmet when he got off work Friday night and told me to go get a bike to wear with it. Something like that. Again, he was working, so I loaded up the little guys and off we went, bike shopping. I haven’t owned a bike for at least 10 years, although I occasionally took his for a spin. Did you ever ride a men’s bike with a really high bar? In a skirt? Awkward. Whoa, I really hope I don’t have to stop until I get back home to the mounting block.

He had preselected what he thought was the one I would like, so I browsed for “a bike with vine decals and a nice seat, but not a granny seat”. There were two with vine decals. Me being me, I got the cheaper one. Gabe being Gabe, he had the other one in mind, the one with the shock on the front tire. However, I can’t see myself doing extreme trails anytime soon, so this is fine. It is really fun to go buzzing around the back roads with my boys. We have no arrangement for the little girls to ride along, so Gabe and I haven’t biked together yet. All in good time.

I cleaned out my garden this week, all but the fall stuff. I feel cleansed. No more blighted tomatoes and unhappy watermelons. No more weeds on steroids. Just their babies. I can now look out my kitchen window without feeling the failure of neglected plants. And those grapes that we were fondly anticipating? It puzzled me to find that all the ripe ones kept getting neatly picked off their bunches, the green ones left behind by some fastidious critter until they were ripe, when they would also be neatly picked off. I myself ate maybe 5 grapes, total. Rita solemnly insisted that she did not touch the grapes. The thing was, there were no deer tracks. Then the children told me they kept seeing the cats in the grape vine. I suppose for the cats, those 65 dollars we spent to get them spayed is pretty good insurance. (We are now responsible pet owners.)

We took a ride up to the ski slopes last evening, looking out over the vista of mountains to the west, the glorious sunset highlighting the shapes of scores of windmills in the distance. Gabe thinks they look clean and green. I think they are just a little annoying when I am trying to see the scenery. On our way home we stopped at a local ice cream place where you can get 5 kid cones and 1 medium for $4.25. It was dark and cold and shivery for ice cream eating, but when has a child ever objected to that?

I recently read a thought that impressed me. “When it comes to child training, you decide how you want it, then you make it that way.” (Elisabeth Elliot, who else?) Maybe that is a little overly simplistic, but it is pretty true. When your children are allowed to whine, grab, belch at the table, disobey Mom when they feel like it, and other such socially unacceptable behaviors, it is because you have decided it is too much work to train them otherwise.

We are starting a new initiative this week: The Annual No Complaining About the Food Act. Every so often I notice that my children have fallen into a bad habit of grumbling about what is for dinner. Not everybody dislikes the same food, but with 5 children, there is a good chance that at least one person will not be impressed with the fare. All you need is one person turning up his/her nose for the chorus to begin. “Not beans again! Couldn’t we have spaghetti and meatballs?” Addy: “Have getti and meatballs!” Next meal: “I wish you would make rice instead of quinoa.” Addy: “I wants rice!” Random other child: “No, no, I don’t like rice!”

Mine all like broccoli, by the way, which makes it a bit puzzling when someone chokes about chicken noodle or fried potatoes. Some of them love oatmeal and others prefer eggs, while still others just wish they could have a bagel. And of all things, the kid who hates mayo loves mustard! It sounds like I really have a lot of children, doesn’t it? 😉 I don’t mind preferences. It makes birthday meals fun when you know what they love to eat. But you can’t always have what you prefer. Deal with it. I got tired of displeased sighs at meal time. It’s time to decide how we want it and make it that way.

Last year I purposely made foods they didn’t enjoy until they quit complaining. This year I amped up the stakes. We are having dessert every night this week. Gasp! If you forget and grouse just one time about the food you are served, you get halfsies on dessert. If you grouse more than once, you don’t get any. Fortunately, a jar of peaches counts as dessert for our children. Or a piece of Dove chocolate. Ask Rita how big a half piece of dove chocolate is.

Last night, sort of by accident, I made a total fail of a meal. It was edible, but it wasn’t good. We excused Addy for saying, “It’s yucky.” The rest deserved their ice cream cones.

I just read Code Name Verity, which is actually considered a young adult book, although I wouldn’t recommend it. It made me cry. While I could never be a spy, I love reading spy stories. (I don’t know if it is some housewife thing… me, in my safe little world, reading about the intrigue and unbelievable duplicity of the CIA or Mossad.) I wondered if I could be that brave if I were being interrogated concerning my faith in Jesus and my fellow believers like so many Christians are today.

All right, I will spare you more stream of consciousness and go back to bed.

In Which We Break Out

I would so prefer outdoor stuff to the indoor grind. This past week I convinced the boys that they would probably rather clean the house than mow the lawn. So we switched. I trundled happily after the mower for about an hour. It was loud, blocked out all noise, and I just thought stuff to myself for the whole time. Well, every time I emptied the clippings bag, I could hear that the people inside the house were alive. There were some loud “discussions” about the proper way to clean a bathroom, and no, Gregory did not nail it quite. But I pulled weeds on the walkway and out beside the picket fence and just let them work it out. Then I put away all the garden tools and a bunch of stakes that had a brief life as spears in a throwing contest. When the lawn was all nice and neat, I checked up on their work and was thrilled to see that all the biggest messes were cleaned up, floors cleaned (after a fashion…. seeing as Greg used hand soap out of the dispenser to wash them) etc. etc.

I called everybody outside just to enjoy the gorgeous afternoon. Since school started two weeks ago, it has been noses to the textbooks, labored cursive, practice with forgotten math facts, and a few other not so fun things. Then the afternoons we tried hard to catch up with our regular chores. It made me cross and bothered. Ask Gabe. 🙂 I felt like Jack, the dull boy. And I know that I resembled the mother cat in Milo and Otis, who keeps resolving never to yell at her childr… “Milo! Get back here right now!” Why does that part in the movie always make my children snicker?

Anyway, on this particular afternoon, I was trying to think of something off-the-wall that we could do all together, since Gabe was working that night. The little guys were all climbing around in their favorite Monkey Tree, fashioning make shift platform houses. It was approaching supper time and I had no idea what to feed the crew when I had a happy thought. “Hey, how would you guys like to eat supper in the Monkey Tree?” Oh, yeah, just like that I had my cool-mom status back. 🙂 I am a little embarrassed to admit that “supper” was Cocoa Pebbles served with milk in mugs. Like Alex observed, “At least they are made with real cocoa.” Wanna see?

I thought it was funny that we only had one spill in the tree, and who knows how many we would have had at the table, sitting properly with bowls?

We also had watermelon for dessert. I dared to pick the one in the garden. It was luscious. Just ask Addy.